Dmitry Samoilov How swearing is increasingly penetrating our life and culture 27.11.2024, 10:23

While the main and annual news in the cultural sphere remains the price of tickets for the Bolshoi Theater’s ballet “The Nutcracker”, I confess that I touched art in a much more rude way – I went to a stand-up comedy. It’s a raw, grassroots genre to begin with, which is why we love it. The concert took place in the southeast of Moscow in a new hall with a capacity of about two thousand people. It is worth noting that such halls are not suitable for stand-up comedy; All the appeal of the format is lost here. But this is not even the point, it is the fact that the atmosphere of a large and serious concert contrasts unpleasantly with the manner of presenting stand-up material in principle. Let me remind you that stand-up comedians have traditionally considered obscene language as the main means of expression. And within the genre, of course, this is true both here and in the West. Maybe in the East, but I haven’t seen any Chinese comedians, and I’m not familiar with the semantics of Asian languages, so I can’t claim anything here.

We don’t judge comedians; oddly enough, blasphemy is their bread and butter. This made me think about the place of profanity in modern day life. At the official level, we regularly adopt new laws and regulations that ban obscene language almost everywhere. I still remember that after eleven o’clock in the evening swearing was clearly present on radio broadcasts, after which swearing was of course completely and above all banned in the media. They even banned hints of this in the form of words containing spaces and asterisks and imposed impressive fines on legal entities.

Since the most popular method of disseminating information is the Internet, swearing is prohibited there (here?) – on sites you must write as in other media, you cannot swear in comments and link to resources. There may be obscene language. There is no swearing in art either: it is prohibited on stage and in films, but in printed texts it is still not so clear. You can write almost anything in books as long as the publication is properly marked and film-packaged. If you look at the situation from the heights of legislative offices and supervisory institutions, everything looks not only smooth, but also barren.

In effect, it was the strict ban that completely legalized profanity in the media, speech, and art.

Try tuning to a TV channel with lifestyle programs. These are programs where people talk about their lives, their weddings, their homes, and their culinary skills. You will see all these people – ordinary people who are not trained to be presenters and journalists – swearing all the time. Every second word they say on the air is replaced by a sound signal. From where? Because people don’t know how to talk.

Mat has three causes and functions.

First of all, swearing is needed to strengthen the expression of the word. If you need to emphasize the emotional connotation of a particular maxim, it is quite normal to use profanity. Swearing in a particular situation may be a natural response of the body because it is exactly what suits the situation. For example, a four-letter word that means a sharp blow and is replaced with something like “bang” is an ultra-immediate verb. It is used when you need to react immediately. You can’t replace it with anything.

But if a person constantly needs additional expression, in 50% of his expressions it makes sense to think: Is he sick? Maybe he needs to see a psychotherapist or even a psychiatrist?

Secondly, obscene language is regularly present in the speech of those who are too lazy to work on their vocabulary. And this does not mean that he is poor. This means that when composing sentences, a person deliberately follows the path of least resistance and neglects the main distinguishing feature of the genre – speech. You also know the expletive synonyms used in place of these words: excellent, amazing, wonderful, astonishing, unbelievable, wonderful, great, wonderful, wonderful, etc.

Thirdly, swearing is often an artificially created form of stuttering. Listen to the fact that in the speech of some people swear words do not carry any semantic load, but serve as irrevocable connections between other words. It is especially interesting to observe the speech of such a person in a situation where he is forced to speak without swearing. No, no, but thanks to the efforts made, an extra letter “b” will obviously escape.

So we have only one legitimate reason to use profanity: increased expression. After all, no one wants to admit that they have a poor vocabulary or that stuttering is inevitable, right? But people don’t always need extreme expression. So it turns out that obscene language is necessary for artists and fiction writers of the original genre. And this is exactly where it is not prohibited. And again we return to the fact that officially everything is fine and right with us, but in reality everyone around us swears, even on TV. If you replace a swear word with a sound signal, it does not cease to be a swear word. This means that the problem is not in the legal regulation, but in the culture of speech, no matter how ordinary it sounds.

An incredible discovery – no matter how much you forbid people to do anything, for some reason the level of culture does not increase!

Because conversation can only improve if you follow it. Like a figure. You can legally ban any harmful product, but this will not save you from obesity. At the same time, it is fashionable to lose weight, go on a diet, limit yourself in food. But be careful how you speak, no. So what to do about this? Maybe one day stand-up comedians will set an example. If legislators fail.

The author expresses his personal opinion, which may not coincide with the position of the editors.